


Enterprise(ing) Women

by RedScullyRevival



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek TOS - Fandom, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Fan Vid, vid, vidding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 11:09:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18849874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedScullyRevival/pseuds/RedScullyRevival





	Enterprise(ing) Women

[Enterprise(ing) Women](https://vimeo.com/336637121) from [redscullyrevival](https://vimeo.com/redscullyrevival) on [Vimeo](https://vimeo.com).

"Bad Guy" by Billie Eilish  
Star Trek, 1966  
vid by redscullyrevival

NOTES:

I’ve written on this vid’s concept before but basically the idea behind this nonsense is that, the way I see it, there are three layers to how the women of Star Trek are often times “bad”:

1.) Context  
2.) Contemporary views  
3.) Fannish interpretation / reflection

Star Trek the Original Series is episodic television. An audience can easily understand and go along with the tiniest of reasoning on why we shouldn’t expect lady so and so from this week to be around next week but in order to explain away love interests (often times along with near death experiences), female characters had to be given some justification on why Kirk, Spock, and Bones will have moved on by next week. This is the context we find within episodes: So as to have a revolving door of women for the three male leads to play off of and interact with, often times female characters had to be made “bad”, alien, or (nearly) dead by episode’s end within a rotating variation of one, two, or all three.

Within our contemporary understanding of this 60s TV show we can easily accept and acknowledge this storytelling tactic as I have here (the logistics of getting women on screen when you’ve three male leads in your episodic TV show) along with a fair share of legitimate criticism. ToS can easily be argued to have “bad” female characters.

Which isn’t to say the women found in Star Trek can’t be adored and appreciated within a contemporary gaze, not even close. Often times the fannish space is where these characters are taken in and given more significance and healthier characterization along side legitimate and needed criticism - but the fannish space also does it’s fair share of projecting these same characters within shades of vilification in order to preserve Kirk/Spock tendencies.

Now, my own personal experience and journey with the Star Trek fandom hasn’t seen the boxing and fridging of female characters all that often! I want to make that clear. But, I have certainly seen it happen and I’m older than a lot of ya’ll and over time this stuff piles up. More than just specifically Star Trek though I want to position that fandom with large slash communities in general have habits that are not all that far off base with the revolving door problem ToS has with it’s women: Women in media have to be made “bad” or removable in someway for a m/m pairing to take off. Star Trek is just the media I know the best, means the most to me, and have personal experience with when it comes to dealing with a large slash community so that’s the footage I’m using.

To start I ripped all three seasons of ToS in under a week which isn’t something I suggest anyone do. I’m just impatient and get stuck trying to finish out repetitive projects as fast as possible. I’m glad I ripped my DVDs though, the quality is much better and if you have the means I have nothing but praise for ripping your own footage.

Even though I had a solid outline and an idea I liked I struggled for a few weeks when first putting this project together. Just straight up floundering. I had lots of little frustrations that built up quickly due entirely to my own placed standards and inability to be flexible. In the end though that worked out for the best as the final vid is significantly better than the vid at the height of this frustration where in all honesty I kinda bounced around the idea of just moving on for the sake of getting it done. I’m happy I didn’t do that and instead stuck with really finagling tiny changes even if at the time I felt like I was going crazy!

Scene selection is the bare bones of vidding/video editing and while with this particular vid the context of the scenes used don’t necessarily matter there are a few things I did for my own amusement as far as editing intent goes:

\+ I really liked the idea of having a female character right out the bat (Odona from “The Mark of Gideon” 3x16) being placed with Kirk only for her to 1.) Fight him 2.) Kiss him 3.) Never be seen again in the video. That choice, to me, is this vid’s breakdown of that first layer I spoke of, the show’s contextual use of the bulk of it’s female characters.

\+ The majority of the vid is a display and appreciation of the second layer; how I personally find these female characters engaging and interesting and (hopefully) I got across an expression of love for them as much as I tried to show how obviously these characters are not entirely up to snuff within contemporary critical comprehension of storytelling and media presentation. 

\+ And, most tricky but most obvious, is the end of the vid focusing on slash fandom’s dismissal, hesitation, and even outright fear of female characters causing their ship a rocky navigation. 

\+ The last 45 seconds of the vid dips in and out of red not because of any influence from the original Billie Eilish music video but because red feels threatening (which, naturally, is why it is used in the original video, duh doy) and I wanted to have a fluctuating threatening feeling accompanying the complete shift in editing style.

\+ I feel it’s self explanatory why I chose the Yeoman Rand / Grace Lee Whitney scenes for last even if that choice might polarize some viewers. 

I’d like it if people didn’t just assume I’m trying to shit on slash fandom for funsies but I AM at the same time trying to actively point out a common trend inherent within slash fandom, that much I can’t deny. At the end of the day all I can tell you is I’m a gigantic Kirk/Spock nerd myself and I just find fandom and aspects of it *lifts eyebrow* “fascinating”. 

And that’s that! How anyone wants to ultimately view or take this piece is, ya know, up to them and totally fine by me.


End file.
